An hour passed––two. The third was more than half gone. The hut reeked with the smell of cooking victuals. The Eskimo, who seemed to act as cook, occasionally looked into the camp-kettle. The other two were lying on their blankets, sometimes conversing, but more often silent, gazing stolidly before them. At length the cook uttered a sharp ejaculation and lifted the steaming kettle from its place on the stove. Then he produced four deep pannikins from a sack, and four greasy-looking spoons. From another he produced a pile of biscuits. “Hard tack,” well known on the northern trails.
Supper was ready, and the pock-marked man leant over and roused the traveller.
“Food,” he said laconically, as the startled sleeper rubbed his eyes.
The man sat up and gazed hungrily at the iron pot. 9 The Indian served out the pork with ruthless hands. A knife divided the piece into four, and he placed one in each pannikin. Then he poured the beans and soup over each portion. The biscuits were placed within reach, and the supper was served.
The sick man devoured his uncouth food with great relish. The soup which had been first given him had done him much good, and now the “solid” completed the restoration so opportunely begun. He was a vigorous man, and his exhaustion had chiefly been brought about by lack of food. Now, as he sat with his empty pannikin in front of him, he looked gratefully over at his rescuers, and slowly munched some dry biscuit, and sipped occasionally from a great beaker of black coffee. Life was very sweet to him at that moment, and he thought joyfully of the belt inside his clothes laden with the golden result of his labours on Forty Mile Creek.
Now the half-breed turned to him.
“Feeling pretty good?” he observed, conversationally.
“Yes, thanks to you and your friends. You must let me pay you for this.” The suggestion was coarsely put. Returning strength was restoring the stranger to his usual condition of mind. There was little refinement about this man from the Yukon.
The other waived the suggestion.
“Sour-belly’s pretty good tack when y’ can’t get any better. Been many days on the road?”
“Three weeks.” The traveller was conscious of three pairs of eyes fixed upon his face.
“Hoofing right along?”
“Yes. I missed the trail nearly a week back. 10 Followed the track of a dog-train. It came some distance this way. Then I lost it.”
“Ah! Food ran out, maybe.”
The half-breed had now turned away, and was gazing at the stove as though it had a great fascination for him.
“Yes, I meant to make the Pass where I could lay in a fresh store. Instead of that I wandered on till I found the empty pack got too heavy, then I left it.”
“Left it?” The half-breed raised his two little tufts of eyebrows, but his eyes remained staring at the stove.
“Oh, it was empty––clean empty. You see, I didn’t trust anything but food in my pack.”
“No. That’s so. Maybe gold isn’t safe in a pack?”
The pock-marked face remained turned towards the glowing stove. The man’s manner was quite indifferent. It suggested that he merely wished to talk.
The traveller seemed to draw back into his shell at the mention of gold. A slight pause followed.
“Maybe you ain’t been digging up there?” the half-breed went on presently.
“It’s rotten bad digging on the Creek,” the traveller said, clumsily endeavouring to evade the question.
“So I’ve heard,” said the half-breed.
He had produced a pipe, and was leisurely filling it from a pouch of antelope hide. His two companions did the same. The stranger took his pipe from his fur coat pocket and cut some tobacco from a plug. This he offered to his companions, but it was rejected in favour of their own.
11
“The only thing I’ve had––that and my fur coat––to keep me from freezing to death for more than four days. Haven’t so much as seen a sign of life since I lost the dog track.”
“This country’s a terror,” observed the half-breed emphatically.
All four men lit their pipes. The sick man only drew once or twice at his, then he laid it aside. The process of smoking caused the blisters on his face to smart terribly.
“Gives your face gyp,” said the half-breed, sympathetically. “Best not bother to smoke to-night.”
He pulled vigorously at his own pipe, and the two Indians followed suit. And gradually a pleasant odour, not of tobacco but some strange perfume, disguised the reek of the atmosphere. It was pungent but delightful, and the stranger remarked upon it.
“What’s that you are smoking?” he asked.
For one instant the half-breed’s eyes were turned upon him with a curious look. Then he turned back to the contemplation of the stove.
“Kind o’ weed that grows around these wilds,” he answered. “Only stuff we get hereabouts. It’s good when you’re used to it.” He laughed quietly.
The stranger looked from one to the other of his three companions. He was struck by a sudden thought.
“What do you do here? I mean for a living?”
“Trap,” replied the Breed shortly.
“Many furs about?”
“Fair.”
“Slow work,” said the stranger, indifferently.
12
Then a silence fell. The wayfarer was getting very drowsy. The pungent odour from his companions’ pipes seemed to have a strangely soothing effect upon him. Before he was aware of it he caught himself nodding, and, try as he would, he could not keep his heavy eyelids open. The men smoked on in silence. Three pairs of eyes watched the stranger’s efforts to keep awake, and a malicious gleam was in the look with which they surveyed him. He was too sleepy to observe. Besides, had he been in condition to do so, the expression of their eyes would probably have been different. Slowly his head drooped forward. He was dreaming pleasantly already, although, as yet, he was not quite asleep. Now he no longer attempted to keep his eyes open. Further his head drooped forward. The three men were still as mice. Then suddenly he rolled over on one side, and his stertorous breathing indicated a deep, unnatural slumber.
The hut was in darkness but for a beam of light which made its way in through a narrow slit over the door. The sunlight shone down upon the huddled figure of the traveller, who still slept in the attitude in which he had rolled over on his fur coat when sleep had first overcome him. Otherwise the hut was empty. The half-breed and his companions had disappeared. The fire was out. The lamp had burned itself out. The place was intensely cold.
Suddenly the sleeper stirred. He straightened himself out and turned over. Then, without further warning, he sat up and found himself staring up at the dazzling streak of light.
13
“Daylight,” he murmured; “and